87: A Very Special Sedaris Christmas
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So David was working, making his living as a maid basically, cleaning apartments when the whole Christmas thing hit him. And it hit him by accident. It was all completely by accident that he became a Christmas writer. He never planned it. He basically wrote a story that was excerpts from his diaries. Excerpts from his diaries from when he was working as an elf at Macy's department store during the Christmas season. I wear green velvet knickers, a forest green velvet smock and a perky little hat decorated with spangles. This is my work uniform. The story was this very popular story. Book deals, movie offers, all sorts of other work poured in. And then after that, every year, somebody would ask him to write another Christmas story. NPR, The New Yorker Magazine, The New York Times Op-Ed Page. [LAUGH] It was a strange assignment to get year after year. And something about it just gave him this strange feeling he just did not want to be that Christmas guy, the elf. So he proceeded to write a series of stories that are so dark and so full of greed and pettiness and spite that sometimes it seems like David is on a single-handed mission to try to destroy Christmas. [LAUGH] But that is an accident too. Because the thing about David Sideris, in real life, really, he loves Christmas. I talked to his sister, Tiffany, about it this week from Boston. >> It's a very serious thing, and he starts like, it'll call you in June and say, I'm all done with my Christmas shopping. [LAUGH] >> I'm like, is this some kind of time change between here in New York that I don't know anything about? It's like 110 here. [MUSIC] >> His sister Amy confirms this. >> Man, he is, he gets dressed up. He stays up really late on Christmas Eve, on the tree, just staring at the tree and shaking presents so hard that they would break, but until he would hear some kind of rattling going on. [MUSIC] >> David Sider will. >> The money didn't really make me anything to him. It was important that everybody spent, however, everybody's specific. But 20 gives that he spent on a bill. >> Really? >> [LAUGH] >> I keep a list every year of what I gave everybody and how much it cost, and what they gave me, and how much I think that cost. >> [LAUGH] >> Incredibly, David did confirm his father's story. >> Because a lot of people, you can ask him in February,
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